Advertising error derails Crestview charter vote

Tuesday

Oct 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 23, 2012 at 4:05 PM

After more than three years of effort to formulate a revised city charter to bring to voters, an administrative error has forced the City Council to repeal the ordinance that will be on the Nov. 6 ballot.

BRIAN HUGHES / Crestview News Bulletin

CRESTVIEW— After more than three years of effort to formulate a revised city charter to bring to voters, an administrative error has forced the City Council to repeal the ordinance that will be on the Nov. 6 ballot

Faced with the possibility that the new charter could be challenged if voters approve it, the council voted unanimously Monday to repeal the ordinance.

The council’s action makes the vote on the new charter meaningless. It is the last item on Crestview voters’ ballots.

“It will not come off the ballot” because the ballots already have been printed, City Attorney Jerry Miller said. “It will just be an irrelevant ballot item, but it will have no effect.”

City Clerk Betsy Roy announced the mistake at the council meeting after conferring with Miller on Friday.

“It has come to the attention of this office that there may be a problem with the advertisement and timing of the public hearing for the charter Ordinance 1474,” Roy said in an email to Miller.

The ordinance hearing was advertised for March 26. However, the hearing was held April 9.

“The public hearing was not held on the night noticed in the public notice,” Miller stated in his email reply to Roy. “The requirements for adoption of Ordinance 1474 were not met. The method available for correction of the error is repeal of the ordinance and readopting by the City Council.”

Because of a five-year statute of limitations, Miller said if voters had approved the new charter Nov. 6, it could be challenged at any time over the following five years.

“Ordinance 1474 will have to be repealed and re-submitted in order to get in the charter revision on the March (2013) ballot,” Roy said in an agenda memo to the council.

Councilwoman Robyn Helt, who served on the charter review committee before she was elected, was furious. She said the mistake illustrates why the proposed change to a city administrator form of government was needed.

“I’d say this is a case in point where the city could benefit from having a city administrator,” she said.

Miller said neither he nor former City Attorney Ben Holley could have prevented the error.

“In your system, neither of us could have protected you from this situation,” Miller said. “We’re not part of the review process to reconcile notices and agenda. That’s done administratively in your Administrative Services Department.”

After the council voted to repeal the charter ordinance, Helt proposed performing an audit of all ordinances approved over the last five years to assure they were properly advertised.

“I need to make sure the issue was isolated to one particular item,” Helt said. “The purpose of that is to make sure this is not an isolated incident about a matter that is not popular to everybody but is popular to some.”

She then moved to direct city staff “to review and match up with publications the ordinances the council has passed in the last five years.” She later amended her motion to have the audit stretch back just four years with a provision that if errors were found, the fifth year could be examined as well. Helt’s motion passed unanimously.